


The Boy Who Ran

by Poe



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, I'm imagining Credence is 25 and Graves is in his early 30s, M/M, Pancakes, commitment issues, reuploaded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 02:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13021398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poe/pseuds/Poe
Summary: Credence runs because that’s what he knows how to do. Because he let himself get attached. Because he let himself feel safe. He runs because otherwise he’ll suffocate. His lungs burn and he feels like he might actually suffocate anyway, but at least it would be on his terms.Credence runs because he’s been doing it for years and doesn’t know how to stop.





	The Boy Who Ran

Credence runs because that’s what he knows how to do. Because he let himself get attached. Because he let himself feel safe. He runs because otherwise he’ll suffocate. His lungs burn and he feels like he might actually suffocate anyway, but at least it would be on his terms.

Credence runs because he’s been doing it for years and doesn’t know how to stop.

His phone rings in his pocket, over and over, the same ringtone starting up and then drawing to a close, starting up again and drawing to a close. His text alert blurts out, insistent beeps against his thigh.

He passes a trash can and considers binning it, except it cost him too much. It’s an older model, but one of the few luxuries he owns. He pulls it out of his pocket and looks at his missed calls list.

_Eight missed calls from Graves._

He deliberately unfocuses his eyes so he doesn’t accidentally read the texts, and flicks the button on the side that will turn on silent mode. He takes a moment to catch his breath, and starts running again. He doesn’t know where he’s going, only, _away_.

He got sloppy, got careless. A one night thing, grinding against a stranger with strong hands and an accent he couldn’t place, kisses that mixed sweet drinks with sour on their tongues, falling into bed and seeing stars as the man had taken him apart piece by piece. And then, in his fucked out state, allowing his eyes to close, just for a moment.

And waking up the next morning to the smell of pancakes.

If you wanted him to point on the chronology of everything that had happened where the tipping point was, it was two plates of fluffy pancakes shared out in equal piles, and the man he’d gone to bed with arranging condiments on the table and smiling up at him, eyes kind.

Nobody had ever made Credence pancakes before.

So he ate the pancakes with a lump in his throat and fingernail scratches down his back. And when the man asked for his number, he didn’t say no.

When the man kissed him goodbye he didn’t turn his cheek so that it would miss his lips. Instead he’d sunk into it, forgetting himself, forgetting everything. Like stepping into a vast ocean for the very first time.

The kiss had tasted sweet.

The pancakes had broken him, and he’d let himself fall for the first time in his life.

One night became two. And the next morning, more pancakes. He learnt the man’s name, Graves, his surname, because he thought his first name made him sound like a Republican. He liked calling him Graves, morbid though it may be, and he liked the way his own name sounded when Graves said it, with a reverence Credence had never deserved.

So, he stopped fucking about. Stopped going out drinking.

Graves invited him to his apartment for pizza.

He should have said no.

He let himself believe in the domesticity of it all. Graves’ apartment slowly became as familiar as his own, Graves’ bed no longer a hardship to sleep in.

Waking up with Graves’ arm wrapped around his waist didn’t feel constricting. When Graves reached out to push a stray hair from his face, he didn’t flinch away.

He didn’t tell Graves anything, of course.

But it felt like Graves knew already.

He treated Credence like he was made of spun silk, except when Credence pouted and bit his lip and crawled into Graves’ lap and showed him exactly how fragile he wasn’t.

Graves had whispered prayers onto his skin and it didn’t feel like sacrilege. It was a beautiful blasphemy and Credence had pleaded for more, ever more, the words that had once been used to hurt him, _God_ , _Christ_ , _Jesus_ , mixed with _fuck_ , _beautiful_ , _mine_. The scratches down his back were his stigmata, and he let the water of the shower pound down on them and let them burn.

Graves would look at him sometimes, considering, whilst they watched some movie or other on Netflix. Credence wondered if Graves ever took the plots in, the amount of _looking_ he did.

When Credence had nightmares, Graves spoke to him in a soft, barely there voice until the tremors stopped and the tears dried on his cheeks.

They never talked about it the next morning, but his pancake stack was always a little higher those days.

Credence had been in control.

Until he wasn’t.

Until – he checks his phone, forty five minutes ago.

He doesn’t recognise where he is when he lifts his head, and there’s nobody he can call. He doesn’t have the money for a taxi. He curses to himself, curses himself for running so far.

His legs are like jelly and he finds a bench to sit on.

He turns on his mobile data and loads his Maps app.

He’s miles away from anywhere. It’ll take him well over an hour to get back home if he walks.

As he sits there, he tries not to think about Graves’ words. It had been a normal evening, and maybe that’s what the problem had been, that Credence had allowed _normal_ to become a thing. Credence had his feet tucked under Graves’ thighs on the sofa as Graves had stared at the television as though he was trying to solve all the universe’s problems all at once. This wasn’t particularly unusual, though he’d been doing it more of late. Credence had let him stew, half watching a rerun of some old cartoon. He’d been zoning out when Graves had said his name,

“ _Credence_ ,” and it had been loaded with an emotion that either hadn’t been there before or Credence had never noticed during the past few months. _Months_. God, he’d really let this get out of hand.

Credence had sat in silence as Graves had looked at him with this strange new aura around him, and then Graves had said it, the worst thing he could have possibly said. The thing that had made Credence grab his shoes and run without even replying,

“Credence, you know I love you, right?”

He feels sick remembering it.

Love gets you hurt.

People lie. Love is a tool. Love is manipulation.

Love is a loss of control.

If Graves loves him –

He can never see Graves again.

He shivers. He’d left his coat in the rush. It wasn’t particularly warm, second-hand and a little threadbare, but it was warmer than the sweat soaked t-shirt that was now clinging to his skin.

Fuck.

So that’s why he’d run.

So, on a bench in the middle of a city he barely knows, he sits and tries to figure out what to do next.

His phone vibrates again in his hand and he reads the text before he can stop himself. It’s from Graves. Of course it is.

 **Graves:** Credence, come home. Talk to me.

 _Home_. As though there such a place exists.

Home is a nice idea, but Credence doesn’t believe in it. It’s another lie told to children. It’s another manipulation. Another chain to stop you running.

He tries to ignore it. But the text thread is open now and his thumb scrolls upwards. Graves – isn’t angry. He’s confused. Worried. He wants Credence to come home. _Home_. There’s that word again.

Credence thinks about Graves’ apartment, about how it’s always slightly darker than it should be because Graves gets migraines a lot, about the shelves of books with leather bindings, about the desk with sprawlings of papers Graves works on late into the night to be ready for work the next day.

The smell of pancakes in the morning and the way Graves hooks one ankle around Credence’s as they eat.

How it doesn’t feel so scary to touch sometimes.

How Graves came to equal _safe_ and how Graves is the only person he ever went back to. How when he’d woken up that first morning his first instinct hadn’t been to run.

Graves never rescued him or anything like that, Credence did that all by himself. But Graves has experienced the aftershocks in every flinch, every nightmare, every time Credence had got lost in his own head and lost an hour staring blankly at nothing.

But –

Graves never made him want to run. Until tonight.

Because Graves made it real.

Make believe is fine. Hypothetical is fine. But saying the words –

Actually saying the words –

Love is manipulation. Love is the ultimate chain that ties and binds and restricts and constricts until Credence is utterly bound.

Isn’t it?

But – _pancakes_. The way Graves would tell Credence about his day and make it funny when it should have been boring. The way Graves would look at Credence as though he’d hung the moon. The way Graves had traced Credence’s cheekbone with his thumb as though he’d never seen anything like Credence before.

Is there more than one way to love?

Can love be tender, soft and kind? Can love be bodies moving together in the darkness and moans that ring out like hymns? Can love be safety and home and want and need?

Can love be honest and without expectation or agenda?

With shaking fingers, he taps out a reply,

                **Credence** : You said you loved me

He looks over at the bin beside the bench in case he needs to hurl. His stomach churns violently as he waits. He watches the little bubble that indicates that Graves is typing for a long time.

Finally, words replace the bubble,

                **Graves** : I’d tell you every single day until you believed me. Or never again if it hurts you. I know you’ve been through a lot, and if you want to run from this, it’ll hurt like hell but I’ll understand. But I was really hoping that you’d come back. If you want to.

Credence bites back a sob. He hadn’t even noticed he was crying. How long had he been doing that for?

He opens the Maps app again and screenshots his location.

He looks at the arrow on his screen, pointing out his existence, the boy who ran.

The boy who never had a home. The boy who was afraid of the hurts that so-called love wrought.

The boy who has found someone who might not be the same as _she_ was. Who has never looked at him as though he were wrong or broken.

He sends the screenshot to Graves.

                **Credence** : I don’t know where I am

The words seem to mean so much more than they read. Running is fine, but it has left him unanchored, drifting and _free_ , but the kind of free that doesn’t stop the nightmares from following him, but instead leaves them in a trail behind him.

                **Graves** : I’m coming to get you. Just – stay put. Please.

He could run. Right now. Graves has a car but he’s still a good while away even if he leaves right now. Credence could disappear.

Become smoke in the wind.

Except –

Maybe he doesn’t want to.

Maybe he’s a little tired of running.

He’s not going to stop.

Never going to stop.

But maybe he can pause, for a moment and listen to Graves.

He can’t run this marathon every day of his life.

He needs a rest point, somewhere to catch his breath.

                **Credence** : You love me

He stares at the words, trying to make them true in his own head. He can’t say them back. Not yet, maybe never. But –

                **Graves** : I love you. I’m coming to get you. You must be freezing. Stay safe. I’ll be there before you know it.

Credence wipes at his cheeks with the back of his hand and sets his phone down on the bench beside him. His legs itch to run. It’d be so easy.

Except –

He wants to hear those words in Graves’ voice again. Wants to see how they hang in the air. Wants to try to acknowledge the truth of them.

He’s not used to wanting.

He _takes_ , but he never really _wants_. Warm bodies and cheap drinks.

A half-life lived in dark rooms vibrating with music he doesn’t recognise and filled with people who would never say those words to him.

But Graves _did_. He said them. He typed them. He’s coming to find Credence in this big city that wants to swallow him whole.

So Credence waits, with goosebumped skin and sick stomach.

But with the tiniest glimmer of something budding inside him.

Something small, that needs to be cherished and protected. Something fragile.

Credence doesn’t know it’s there yet, but it’ll grow if he lets it.

If he doesn’t run.

*

When Graves pulls up, he steps out of the car and gathers Credence to him. He says the words again, close to Credence’s ear. And Credence doesn’t run.

**Author's Note:**

> reuploaded.
> 
> anyway, you can find me on tumblr at new-salem.tumbr.com if you want. *shrug emoji*


End file.
